coming of age Archives

Yzabel / June 27, 2015

Review: The Truth According To Us

The Truth According to Us: A Novel by Annie Barrows

My rating: [rating=2]

Blurb:

Evoking the same small town charm with the same great eye for character, the co-author of GUERNSEY LITERARY & POTATO PEEL SOCIETY finds her own voice in this debut novel about a young debutante working for the Federal Writer’s Project whose arrival in Macedonia, West Virginia changes the course of history for a prominent family who has been sitting on a secret for decades. The Romeyn family is a fixture in the town, their identity tied to its knotty history. Layla enters their lives and lights a match to the family veneer and a truth comes to light that will change each of their lives forever.

Review:

[I received a copy through NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.]

This was a strange read, one that I both liked, but less than I had hoped and expected. To be honest, I found the book a wee bit too long. Somehow, it felt like it could’ve been tightened, and although the last chapters, after the “reveal”, were needed, they still seemed to drag a little.

The style here mixes present tense first person narrative, past tense third person narrative, and excerpts from letters. I liked the tone of those, especially Layla’s, as they were witty, and at the same time revealed her lack of experience in other circumstances than those she had grown up in. I’m not sure what to make of the past/present/POV choice—as usual. I’ve seen this technique used more and more in the past few years, and I can never tell if it’s a good idea or if it irks me. Both, I suppose. Here, I was more bothered when the third person narrative jumped from one character to another within the span of a couple of paragraphs.

Macedonia had the charms of a little town in summer, with its quirky people, its own unspoken rules, its skeletons in the closet, whether in the past (the soldiers who spend the night in the house of a lady… of the evening, or the general who was actually crazy enough to shoot his own son) or in the present (what happened to Vause, Felix’s actual occupation). I found myself wanting to discover more about its history as seen through the eyes of its inhabitants.

Layla didn’t strike me as particularly interesting, yet turned out better than I thought, at least, proving to others (and to herself) that she could be more than a future trophy wife, and that she wasn’t so stupid—only sheltered. While she didn’t approach her task as a historian in the most objective manner, which is impossible anyway as history is never objective, she still did it with the intent of writing about Macedonia’s past in an interesting way. What I didn’t like was the emotional part of her involvement when it came to a specific character, as it was so painfully obvious that she was being played… and after that, unfortunately, she kind of fell flat.

Other characters I found annoying on a regular basis, and it seemed that mostly nobody knew what they really wanted. Not unexpected (*I* don’t know what I want in life, after all!), but annoying after a while. I still don’t know if everybody was completely selfish reflections of how bleak human nature is, stupid, full of love, lying to themselves, hiding their inner pain, wanting only what others had… All of that, I guess? On the one hand, it was interesting, showing that the “idyllic little southern town” was all but. On the other hand, characters like Jottie constantly made me think “can’t you be happy with one choice in your life, for a change?” (Basically, she denied herself for 18 years, then when she finally chose for herself, it was “too easy”, thus worthless. I wouldn’t call 18 years “too easy”, but maybe that’s just me.)

I would have liked to see more events unfold from Willa’s point of view. She had both a ruthless and childish take on things, which fitted her 12-year-old self, balancing between carefree childhood and wanting the grown-ups to see her as an equal, someone they’d confide into. As they obviously wouldn’t, she tried to discover things by herself—and got more than her money’s worth in that regard. I didn’t really like how she reacted in the end, as it made her part of the narrative less involved.

Conclusion: Interesting background (Macedonia, the WPA, the strike), but not so interesting for me when it came to the characters, who were a little too predictable and also annoying. 2.5 stars.

Yzabel / September 26, 2014

Review: A Sudden Light

A Sudden Light by Garth Stein

My rating: [rating=2]

Summary:

In the summer of 1990, fourteen-year-old Trevor Riddell gets his first glimpse of Riddell House. Built from the spoils of a massive timber fortune, the legendary family mansion is constructed of giant, whole trees, and is set on a huge estate overlooking Puget Sound. Trevor’s bankrupt parents have begun a trial separation, and his father, Jones Riddell, has brought Trevor to Riddell House with a goal: to join forces with his sister, Serena, dispatch Grandpa Samuel—who is flickering in and out of dementia—to a graduated living facility, sell off the house and property for development into “tract housing for millionaires,” divide up the profits, and live happily ever after.

But Trevor soon discovers there’s someone else living in Riddell House: a ghost with an agenda of his own. For while the land holds tremendous value, it is also burdened by the final wishes of the family patriarch, Elijah, who mandated it be allowed to return to untamed forestland as a penance for the millions of trees harvested over the decades by the Riddell Timber company. The ghost will not rest until Elijah’s wish is fulfilled, and Trevor’s willingness to face the past holds the key to his family’s future.

Review:

(I got an ARC courtesy of NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.)

A book that started well in my opinion, yet lost momentum along the way.

I liked its stifling setting, how the characters were isolated in that huge, derelict house, the feeling of entrapment (mostly through Serena, who had stayed there for her whole life and never travelled or did the things she wanted to do). Riddell House was permeated with a strong atmosphere of oppressive memories, between ghosts that may or may not exist and memories weighing heavily on everyone. Secret rooms and passages, hints at family secrets, letters and trinkets appearing in unexpected places… Basically, the setting was really what fascinated me here.

The writing style was beautiful, too, befitting the poetic aspects of the nature outside the house (I’m positive the Thoreau-like vibes I got from it were totally on purpose).

On the other hand, what worked in descriptions didn’t work in dialogue, and unfortunately, this left a stain on my enjoyment of the novel. The characters in general had a tendency to talk “like in a book”—meaning I constantly felt that they had rehearsed their speech beforehand. Of course, the narrator not being the 14-year-old Trevor, but an older Trevor, might account for that; however, the effect it caused still remained a problem for me. Perhaps filtering the story through the older Trevor’s voice wasn’t the best choice here; perhaps I would have liked it more if it had been unadultered. It’s hard to tell. Serena especially had a weird way of talking, going into soliloquies at times, as if performing for an audience, and her speech patterns definitely sounded unnatural.

In general, I found the mystery lacking in depth. The ghost aspect of the novel was nothing exceptional (if you’re looking for something spooky, you won’t find it here), although I must say I liked Harry’s and Benjamin’s story, and the way it ended. The family secrets were somewhat to be expected, as well as the characters’ motivations. I also thought the novel crammed a lot of elements together (ghosts, lost loves, illness, madness…), yet went on tangents that made it drag, resulting in a paradoxical narrative that was both too short and too long.

Not uninteresting, but I expected much more out of it, and didn’t get it in the end.